Walks with Somebody
by Toby Jaffe
One time – and only one time, and mind you I was quite young and confused and out of control – I was so madly in love with Somebody that I couldn’t stop throwing up. The extent of this passion was such that even after this Somebody completely cut me off I was still throwing up all over the place.
I prefer to remember the vomiting that took place when Somebody was around.
Upper West Side, 2010, summer time. Dark, fluorescent, ghostly. Throwing up in the garbage can at the 92nd street subway.
My therapist has her theories. Feelings possibly mutual, definitely repressed. Expelled into my hot dumpling soup at that place on Columbus avenue. Or maybe Amsterdam.
Indica springtime… city diners… fluttering spoons with little wings… hugging our cellphones… laughing about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 2010… summer time… Upper West Side… over a toilet bowl with views of the Hudson and the cyclists in the park.
The two of us could never be the cyclists nor the flowing Hudson. We were the George Washington Bridge if he/they/she were a couple of juggling clowns doing our best to deceive all those soaring cars rustling along our spine. We were the Brooklyn Bridge, fully clothed, made up, and charismatic. We were grandness deferred, Mx. and Mx. Port Authority… just as sad.
Indica summertime… getting high in Jersey… sometimes our ghosts could’ve stopped global warming… our ghosts could have conquered the MTA.
Toby Jaffe is an American writer published in the Baffler, the New Republic, the Gay and Lesbian Review, and elsewhere.